"And," continued Michel, "it is not only my mother that I fear, but--"
"Wait!" said the baron, looking uneasily about him; "let us get away from these bushes."
"Oh! yes, to be sure,--a good sort of fellow, who was always on your side, even against your mother."
"Yes. Well, Courtin is now mayor of the village and a violent Philippist. If he found you wandering about, at night in disguise he would arrest you without a warrant."
"This is serious," said Henri de Bonneville, gravely. "What does Petit-Pierre think of it?"
"I think nothing, my dear Rameau-d'or; I leave you to think for me."
"The result is that you close your doors to us?" said Bonneville.
"That won't signify to you," said Baron Michel, whose eyes suddenly lighted up with a personal hope,--"it won't signify, for I will get you admitted to another house, where you will be in far greater safety than at La Logerie."
"Not signify! but it does signify. What says my companion?"
"I say that provided some door opens, I don't care where it is. I am ready to drop with fatigue, I am so tired."
"Has Petit-Pierre the strength for it?" asked Henri.
"Petit-Pierre will find strength for it," said the little peasant, laughing.
"Then let us follow Baron Michel," said Bonneville. "Forward, baron!"
And the little group, which had been at a standstill for the last ten minutes, moved away. But they had hardly gone a few hundred steps before Bonneville laid a hand on Michel's shoulder.
"I will follow you, provided you can promise me a good bed and a good supper for Petit-Pierre, who, as you see, is rather delicate."
"He shall have all and more than I could give him at La Logerie,--the best food in the larder, the best wine in the cellar, the best bed in the castle."
On they went. At the end of some little time Michel said suddenly:--
"I'll go forward now, so that you may not have to wait."
"One moment," said Henri. "Where are we going?"
"Yes; you know it very well, with its pointed towers roofed with slate, on the left of the road opposite to the forest of Machecoul."
"Yes, the wolves' castle, if you choose to call it so."
"Have you sufficiently reflected, Michel?"
"Yes, yes; I will answer for everything."
The baron waited to say no more, but set off instantly for the castle, with that velocity of which he had given such unmistakable proof on the night when he went to fetch the doctor to the dying Tinguy.